F o r e w o r d
FOREWORD BY I
n July last year I had the honour and privilege to take up the post of Chief of the Air Staff ’s Warrant Officer (CASWO). My main task is to engage as
widely as possible with RAF personnel wherever they serve, to inform them of current issues, listen to their concerns and canvass for ideas, feeding back directly to the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS). To facilitate this, I have a desk in Main Building, Whitehall and an office at Air Command, High Wycombe and am ably assisted by my PA Cpl Kate Durham.
JPA reminds me that I have been serving for thirty-five years and eight months and I have been married for over thirty years. In that time I have seen a few changes around the married patch; coal was put into coal-sheds not kids toys and remember the massive storage heater that took up most of the living room?
Well times have changed, even the title – Married Quarters are now called Service Families Accommodation (SFA). But who could have predicted serving mums, single parents and same-sex partners? The latter has probably got some of the ‘old guard’ twitching, but hey, this is part of the modern family life. So is it all rosy on the patch? Well we have advanced with the times in many areas but there remain further areas where improvements can still be made. Defence Estates are doing a
CHIEF OF THE AIR STAFF’S WARRANT OFFICER WARRANT OFFICER GARY WILCOX
fine job in estate rationalisation and the re-instatement of local patch management (known as MQ Estates Officers in my day)
does appear to fill the void. But we are not there yet…
Now SFA is not necessarily my specialist subject, in fact, as the CASWO I have found that you have to leave your parent trade behind you. It is though, very important to have an extensive knowledge of the RAF across all trades and issues, coupled with a good working knowledge of our sister Services. Ten months in post and I must confess that I haven’t acquired all this knowledge but I am reasonably aware of the various agencies that are established to guide us through our family difficulties.
Contractorisation, partnership, chain of command, there are times when it is not obvious who is the first point of contact or who is responsible and this can be very frustrating and invariably can lead to – doing nothing. Well there is some good news. The RAF Families Federation exists as an independent body to provide a listening ear, a representative body for you and your families, and to provide a voice in the ‘corridors of power’ so that issues may be correctly identified and managed. So if you have an issue I urge you all to make contact, or better still, attend one of their many workshops and share your experience – together we can make sure the RAF community remains a welcoming harmonious place to live and work.
www.raf-ff.org.uk
Summer 2010
5
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56